How to install Java 7 and Java 8 on Mac OS X?

Now that we have installed the package managers in Mac OS X, we can install the most widely used Java versions on Mac OS X.

Most big data technologies work with Java 1.7 also called Java 7. Few of these use the Java 1.8 also called Java 8.

Unfortunately for Mac OS X the distributions available are from Oracle and not from OpenJDK. Install Java 7 before installing Java 8. This would install the JDK version of the Java.

Issue the following command to install Java 7

sudo brew cask install java7

Issue the following command to install Java 8

sudo brew cask install java

The default location of the installation is present under

/opt/homebrew-cask/Caskroom/

You could also find more information about the Software by typing the installation keyword like java, java7 etc

brew cask info java7


Feb 19, 2019
An updated article is available to install Java 8 as Java 7 is quite old.